Another Memphis church weighs CVS deal

Offer is for half of Berclair Baptist acreage; vote is Wed.

Berclair Baptist's sanctuary is seen in the door of an Ike's pharmacy across Summer that closed last month.

Another shrinking church congregation inside the Interstate 240 loop is getting ready to vote whether to sell its buildings to make way for a pharmacy.

CVS has offered Berclair Baptist Church $1.6 million for the front half of its 3.8 acres, Keith Watkins, who leads the deacons, said Monday.

The purchase would include the towering, modern 1963 sanctuary fronted by triangular and circular fenestration, as well as the smaller 1951 chapel and Sunday school space.

The church at 4584 Summer occupies the northwest corner of Summer and Perkins. A Walgreens and now-closed Ike's pharmacy sit at two of the other three corners.

The aging congregation -- which has shrunk to about 65 Sunday-morning worshippers -- will vote Wednesday night.

The CVS offer continues a trend for older churches with dwindling membership and rising maintenance costs. Union Avenue United Methodist Church voted last winter to sell its historic building to CVS. Eudora Baptist Church at Poplar and Perkins sold the front of its property to Walgreens four years ago.

Berclair's membership narrowly voted to reject a CVS offer in February, said Watkins, who opposes selling. But the issue has returned.

"I know eventually we have to close," Watkins said. "We have fewer and fewer people. Therefore, we have less money. I just asked, let it die naturally. ...

"These old churches such as ours in the inner city are closing because old people are left and younger people have moved."

The average age of active members in the church is 81, said Watkins, who's 72.

"A lot of these old people have no place to go except on Sundays and Wednesdays with their friends," Watkins said. "You get old and you just can't hardly go anywhere. There, you have a church to go to. ... That's all they have to live for."

If the sale is approved, the congregation would build a smaller church building on the remaining two acres.

The pastor, Rev. Mike Jones, supports the sale, saying the small membership now must spend much more money on maintaining the 56,000 square feet than on missions and outreach.

"People need to know this is not about the sale of a property, it's about doing ministry," Jones said. "We're spending more of our resources on maintenance and upkeep that needs to be directed to ministry and outreach."

The congregation has not been using the bigger, 1963 sanctuary because its air-conditioning system is broken.

The church has budgeted $200,000 for maintenance next year, and that won't solve all the repair problems, Jones said.

Unlike the Union Avenue United Methodist Church building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Berclair Baptist buildings are not historically significant, said architect Keith Kays, who co-wrote "A Survey of Modern Public Buildings in Memphis, Tennessee From 1940 to 1980."

The height of the 1963 building is striking, he said.

"It's so monumental and so beyond the scale of what one would expect to find in that neighborhood," Kays said.

He described the geometric patterns that tower above the sanctuary's front doors as "pretty remarkable."

On Monday, CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis said, "We have no announcement for a new store on Summer."